Chelsea Coop

EDUC 125
Video Analysis
April 11th, 2016
With this assignment, I decided to analyze the first ten minutes of my lesson. In this time
frame, the students and I demonstrated the majority of the discussion that was needed for this
specific lesson. Due to the circumstances of this assignment, I felt it was best to analyze this part
of the lesson for it will provide and demonstrate areas that show strength as well as areas that are
in need of improvement. After watching a video of my teaching, there are several areas that are
in need of improvement in regards to interactions with the students with questions as well as my
body movement.
Within the first ten minutes, I had 36 interactions with the students either as a group or on
an individual basis and three small group interactions where the students talked and discussed
questions amongst each other. Of those 36 interactions, more than half were interactions based
on myself asking a question while the rest were my responses to the students thought or opinion
to the question. I noticed that the majority of my questions were either short answer or somewhat
thought provoking for the student. When reflecting on the past several lessons, I have improved
on my questions in regards to not asking yes/no questions and more that are open ended and
engage their critical thinking. However, when listening to my questions, I feel that I need better
choice in wording to where the student is to comprehend better on what is being said. There were
several times where I stuttered over my words and seemed to cause confusion and needed to give
clarification for some of the students. For example, at 4:35 I asked the students of the resources
that we talked about last week, which of those do you guys think we are affecting the most in a
negative way? Before jumping into that question I would rather have a small discussion on what
it means when something is affected and how that relates to us as humans affecting our natural
resources. Instead, my question to the students would be When we say that something can be
affected, what do we mean by that? How do we as humans affect our resources? Can there be
positive and negative affects to our natural resources? I would ask these questions prior to the
one I asked in the video to help build on their prior knowledge and have a better representation
of what is being asked in the question.
In regards to my responses, I seemed to reply to a students response either with okay,
why do you think that? Or can someone expand on that. I was focusing on trying not to
praise the student if they were on the right track and wanted to give responses that were
somewhat neutral. I believe that my responses were okay but could definitely make them more
engaging and evoke a greater cognitive thought process for the student. Depending on the
students response, I can add responses such as that is interesting, why do you have an opinion
on that? Interesting, why do you believe that we are losing our resources as each generation
comes and goes? Not only can more engaging responses be an aid to the student and their
thinking process but can help steer the student on the mental track they are supposed to be on in
regards to the lesson.
When reflecting on my lesson and comparing it to our classroom goals for our students, I
noticed that there are several goals that I am half way meeting in my lesson. One of our goals
states that students will think critically and use problem solving skills. In my lesson I asked
students questions to help activate their background knowledge to have them give a basic
understanding of what this lesson will consist of but struggled with making my questions more

engaging. In order to meet this goal fully, my questions need to be more engaging for the student
so they will feel more confident in their thoughts and opinions about the topic that is being
discussed. Another goal that was somewhat met states that students will work communicate
effectively in a variety of settings including collaborating with their peers and as an individual.
As stated above, I only incorporated three interactions that had students collaborate about their
thoughts and opinions about a certain question. In order to fully meet this goal, I need to have the
students be more engaged in group discussions as well as walk around and talk to students
individually. This will be beneficial not only for the student but for me due to being able to hear
what a students thought is about a certain topic and if it is on the right track, I can ask the
student to share their thought to the class in hopes that it will lead the class in the right direction.
This is also a good strategy to simply check for understanding with each student individually
which will help build my lesson to see where I need to go. In regards to these two goals, if I
make these simple adjustments to my lessons, I will not only be able to meet these goals fully but
to strengthen my lessons as well.
While reflecting on my lesson, what seems to be my main concern is being more in depth
and explanatory in my questions. For me, watching myself and seeing how I asked the questions
that I did put me in a confusing state and questioning why I chose to word them in that way. If I
seemed confused I would not doubt that some of the students were which explains why some
needed some clarification. In order to prevent any more confusion, I plan on writing my
questions down and refer to them when needed depending on the discussion and the students
responses. I am going to make them more thought provoking and engaging for the student to
exercise their critical thinking and expand their thoughts. Having questions prepared can help set
the stage in the students thought process as well as set the track on what the student is supposed
to accomplish in that lesson.
In regards to the improvements of my teaching, I noticed that my overall body movement
and posture could be improved. I noticed that the majority of the lesson I stood in one area and
did not move around the room more until towards the end of the lesson. In 8:59 of the video, I
had to redirect some students in the back who were off task while a student was talking, Instead
of staying in one place, I could have moved over and stood by the table that was off task and still
gave my attention to the student who was currently speaking. This will not only help prevent
students being off task but I can still be engaged with the student who is speaking and not taking
my attention away from them. Moving around the room while teaching can help students stay on
task and become more engaged in the topic that is being discussed.
When reflecting on my teaching thus far, I feel that I have made improvements with each
lesson and will continue to make improvements in my teaching for the rest of my days as an
educator. This assignment gave me a great insight on myself and how I can strengthen certain
areas of my teaching to make the lesson worthwhile for the students. For the remainder of this
practicum session, I plan on recording myself to watch and reflect on areas of improvements and
strengths. Being able to try new things and improve certain areas of teaching are key aspects to
being a great educator, which is what I intend to be.